


look like hell

by saltywaves



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Cinder is a good wife, Cinder is empress, F/M, Fluff, I’m sorry, Kai is sick, Sick Character, Sickfic, its probably not accurate to actually being sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28267272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltywaves/pseuds/saltywaves
Summary: Kai is sick and Cinder takes care of him
Relationships: Kai/Linh Cinder
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	look like hell

**CINDER WAS NOT** in bed when Kai woke up with a pounding headache. Which was expected, since she had an early morning meeting, but he desperately wanted to bury his head in her neck and sleep away his headache.

Stupid early morning meetings.

Stupid headaches.

Kai regretted getting out of bed as soon as the dizziness hit. He sat down hard and leaned his head in his hands. This was just a headache. He was fine.

He stood again, blinked away the dizziness, and got ready for the day. He didn’t have meetings until the afternoon, and he wouldn’t see Cinder until lunch. Great.

He practically dragged himself to his office. He just wanted to sleep. But he was the emperor, and as long as he had just a headache he had to work.

Unless Cinder forced him not to.

His headache did not improve over the day. In fact, it only grew worse. The words on his port had long ago blurred and stopped making sense. His eyes watered at the bright light.

It was one of those moments he wished he wasn’t emperor.

“You look like hell.”

Kai blinked and looked up. Cinder leaned against the doorway, a look of concern on her face. She had her port tucked under her arm, which had likely used to override the security on the door. She wore a simple dress, telling Kai that the meeting she had gone to was likely more important than usual. She usually wore blouses and pants.

Huh. He hadn’t noticed it was noon already.

“What?”

Cinder entered the room, kicking the door closed behind her. She set her port down in front of him. “You’re all pale and sweaty. Are you feeling okay?”

Kai squirmed away from the bright light of Cinder’s portscreen. “I have a headache, but I feel fine otherwise.”

Cinder snorted. “I can tell you're lying.”

Which was true. Nausea had crawled up in the past hour or so, and he was even more tired. He felt ready to slump onto his desk and sleep.

Kai sighed. “Fine, yeah, I don’t feel that great.”

Cinder frowned. “You’re going back to bed.”

It took Kai a moment to realize she’d said something. “. . . What?”

“You’re going back to bed,” Cinder repeated. “You look like you’re barely staying awake. Better to get rest and recover than pass out in the middle of a meeting.”

She had a point. But he still had work to do, and as much as he wanted to curl up in bed, he didn’t want to ignore anything.

As if reading his thoughts, Cinder gave him a stern look. “Kai.”

Kai weakly raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine.”

He pushed himself to his feet, but the dizziness hit again and his knees buckled.

Cinder practically flew over the desk and looped an arm around his waist, keeping him from falling. “Woah, there. I was joking about passing out earlier, you know that, right?”

Kai laughed weakly, wrapping an arm around Cinder and leaning onto her.

Cinder led him back to their bedroom. Thankfully, they didn’t cross paths with anyone on the way, which would have caused more worry than was needed.

By the time Cinder finally nudged open the door, he was even more pale and shaky and his head spun and his vision was blurry. He all but fell onto the bed.

“I’d ask if you want to change into more comfortable clothes, but . . .” Cinder trailed off. The weight shifted on the bed, indicating she had sat, and then she was rubbing his back and playing with his hair. “Just sleep. I’ll cancel this afternoon's meetings and take care of anything urgent.”

Kai mumbled something even he didn’t understand, and then he was out.

-

 **CINDER SMILED DOWN** at her husband, who was curled on his side and snoring softly. There weren’t many days when she had to take care of him, since he was usually good about taking care of himself. She didn’t know what had possessed him for him to not comm her when he started feeling bad like he normally would. Knowing him, he has probably gotten caught up in his work and ignored everything else. It was common.

Cinder carefully removed her hand from Kai’s hair as she stood. She sent a series of comms out — mostly to Torin, explaining what had happened and telling him to reschedule what he could, and a few to other officials they were supposed to be meeting.

She pulled a blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around Kai, who unconsciously snuggled in.

Cinder smiled again.

She crossed to the other side of the bed and sat, leaning against the pillows. She held her port in one hand, and the other rested next to Kai. In his sleep, he curled his arms around hers and pulled it close.

Working on important government business would be hard with one hand stolen by her unconscious husband, but knowing Kai was resting made it worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to read the one shot I wrote for Cinder’s birthday a few days ago that I won’t be uploading here, you can find it on my writing masterlist on tumblr, @shellyseashell


End file.
